We are late for her friend’s annual Halloween party, me and Frida. She is tapping her foot about the slow elevator. It’s a dorm, I say, What do you expect? She doesn’t answer, but just looks at her phone. My full- body robot costume is annoying her, too. It makes navigating the lobby complicated. Even getting out the door is an issue. I mean, my head is a bucket with a hole cut in it. I can’t see real good or walk much either. I can only duck walk, but I do look awesome, just super cumbersome. I am really needing her guidance. I mean, Could you please just hold on to my hand! But she says it doesn’t go with her costume. Holding hands doesn’t. Frida is dressed as a Star Trek alien like from the 70s. A metallic fabric crosses her shoulders, reaches down from her neck and cups her breasts, leaving her belly exposed, so everyone can see her stylish navel-ring. She is dazzling, sparkling, amazing. She out-classes me by miles. This is true even out of costume. Everyone knows it. Frida knows it. My dad, running his Deli, slicing meat behind bulletproof glass, knows it too. Her dad flying around the country to give expensive advice to company people—whatever. Thing is, Frida keeps letting go of me. My clunky cardboard robot fingers reach for hers, batting her by accident. Quit, she says, I’m texting. I’m telling them we’re late. The party started like hours ago. I remind her that I can’t barely see. I need help and all. She doesn’t say she can’t hear me. We are on Woodward, walking right into the noise of traffic. I thought we were together but her hand is nowhere. I’m out there, suddenly confused about the lines of the crosswalk. Calling her name. She’s not answering. I can hear plenty of voices, but not hers. Then cars start honking. I realize they are honking at me. Get out of the road idiot! You idiot! You dumb fuck robot! I am stuck. Frida is gone. She has no idea. I am calling for her. Shouting into my bucket head.
Steve Hughes is the writer and publisher of Detroit’s longest-running zine Stupor. He is also the author of two collections, Stupor: A Treasury of True Stories (Stupor House, 2011), funded by the Kresge Foundation, and STIFF (Wayne State University Press, 2018). In 2011, he began producing the potluck/literary series called The Good Tyme Writers Buffet. Hughes lives in Hamtramck Michi- gan and continues to collect stories at local watering holes for forth-coming issues of Stupor.